People ask the search bar before they ask us: who is Myrah Peñaloza? Here is the honest, complete answer — the woman, the brand, the values, and the thirty families whose hands are in every seam.

Who is Myrah Peñaloza?

Myrah Peñaloza is the founder, designer, and creative force behind the slow-fashion brand that carries her name. She is a Kundalini yoga teacher and tea-ceremony practitioner of Mexican heritage who grew up in East Los Angeles and now lives and works in Bali, where she designs botanically hand-dyed linen clothing made by a network of around thirty artisan families. Her work sits at the meeting point of conscious living and conscious dressing — clothing made as ceremony rather than as product.

That is the short answer. The longer one is more interesting, because the brand did not start as a brand. It started as a way of living that needed somewhere to put itself.

From East LA to Bali

Before the linen, before Bali, before the artisan families and the botanical dyes, there was a girl from East Los Angeles who was always building something — she just had not found the container yet. The full arc of that journey, from California to a yoga mat to a dye house in Bali, lives in our founder story, From East LA to Bali. What matters here is the shape of it: Myrah did not leave one life to start a fashion label. She followed a practice — Kundalini yoga, studied under teachers including Gurmukh at Golden Bridge Yoga — and the clothing grew out of the practice.

That order matters. The brand is downstream of the values, not the reverse.

What does the Myrah Peñaloza brand make?

The brand makes slow-fashion clothing for women — linen sets, playsuits, gowns, and a small home collection — handmade in Bali and coloured with botanical, plant-based dyes. Pieces are designed to be worn for years, not seasons: the cuts are forgiving, the silhouettes recur and evolve, and the fabrics soften with use rather than wearing out.

A few things define the work:

• Botanical dyeing. Colours are built from plants — turmeric, indigo, and more — over five to seven days of hand-dyeing. Because the process is natural, no two pieces are exactly alike. We explain the full method in how plant-dyed linen is made in Bali.
• Natural fibres. Linen, ramie, cotton muslin, and silk — chosen because they breathe, last, and feel honest against the skin.
• Made slowly. Many pieces are made to order or in small runs, which is a choice, not a limitation. Slowing down is the design.

What does Myrah Peñaloza stand for? The brand values

If you want to know what a brand actually believes, look at what it does when no one is watching. Here is what this one does.

It sustains around thirty families

The clothing is made by a network of roughly thirty artisan households in Bali — dyers, cutters, sewers, embroiderers — who are paid fairly and worked with over years, not used and dropped. This is the part of the brand Myrah is proudest of, and the part that the price of a garment quietly protects. We wrote about what that means in True Abundance: what it means to support thirty families.

It treats clothing as ceremony

"Life is ceremony" is not a tagline here; it is the operating instruction. Pieces are named for goddesses, for moon phases, for moments of dissolution and rebirth, because the woman wearing them is understood to be in the middle of her own becoming. The clothing is meant to mark the day, not just cover it.

It refuses the fast-fashion bargain

No overproduction, no disposable trend cycles, no race to the bottom on price or wage. The brand has chosen the harder, slower economics on purpose — and it survived a pandemic by leaning into that conviction rather than abandoning it. The story of how we built a brand that survived COVID is really a story about not flinching.

Is Myrah Peñaloza an ethical and sustainable brand?

By the measures that matter most in fashion — fair wages, durable natural materials, low-impact botanical dyeing, small-batch production, and long-term relationships with the people who make the clothes — yes. The brand is built around ethical production rather than retrofitting it. We lay out the real costs of that choice in ethically made women's clothing: what it really costs and why it's worth it. "Sustainable" is a word the industry has worn thin; what this brand offers instead is specificity — named makers, named plants, named places.

Who is the clothing for?

For the woman who lives intentionally and wants her wardrobe to reflect who she is becoming. She tends to value fewer, better things; she is often drawn to yoga, ritual, travel, or simply a slower relationship with her own life. If that is you, the wardrobe philosophy in conscious fashion for women is the best place to begin — and the Set Collection is where most women start.

Where is the brand based?

Design and production are rooted in Bali, Indonesia, where the dye houses and artisan families are. The brand ships worldwide, and recently opened a physical boutique — a space we waited nearly two years to get right. The story of that boutique and its architecture is its own letter.

Frequently asked questions about Myrah Peñaloza

Who is Myrah Peñaloza?

Myrah Peñaloza is the founder and designer of the eponymous slow-fashion brand, a Kundalini yoga teacher and tea-ceremony practitioner of Mexican heritage who grew up in East Los Angeles and now designs botanically hand-dyed linen clothing in Bali, made by around thirty artisan families.

What kind of clothing does the brand sell?

Slow-fashion women's clothing — linen sets, playsuits, gowns, and a small home collection — made from natural fibres like linen, ramie, cotton muslin, and silk, and coloured with plant-based botanical dyes in Bali.

Is Myrah Peñaloza ethical and sustainable?

Yes. The brand pays its makers fairly, works with the same artisan families over years, uses durable natural materials and low-impact botanical dyeing, and produces in small batches or made to order rather than overproducing.

Why is the clothing more expensive than fast fashion?

Because the price reflects fair wages for thirty artisan households, multi-day hand-dyeing, natural fibres, and small-batch construction. The garments are made to be worn for years, which makes the cost-per-wear low even when the upfront price is higher.

Where is Myrah Peñaloza clothing made?

In Bali, Indonesia, by a network of around thirty local artisan families who dye, cut, sew, and embroider each piece by hand.

What does "life is ceremony" mean to the brand?

It is the brand's core belief that ordinary moments — dressing, making tea, moving through a day — are worthy of attention and intention. The clothing is designed to mark those moments rather than simply cover them.

With love from Bali,
Robindra